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Magnetometer Study of Historic Wyatt Chapel

On March 31, 2024, archaeologists Dr. Chet Walker and Aundrea Thompson returned to the campus of Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU) to complete their geophysical examinations of the historic burial ground of Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery.

 

 

This project is funded through the Summerlee Foundation.

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LIDAR DRONE 001
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Dr. Chet Walker came back to the cemetery following a massive storm that left several trees broken near the entrance to the cemetery.

Broken Trees in the Cemetery

Dr. Chet Walker came back to the cemetery following a massive storm that left several trees broken near the entrance to the cemetery.
The top of this tree was broken off and laying on the ground

The Bottom of the Tree

The top of this tree was broken off and laying on the ground
Despite the storm damage, Dr. Walker managed to complete his magnetometer study of the cemetery.

Storm Damage

Despite the storm damage, Dr. Walker managed to complete his magnetometer study of the cemetery.
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The archaeologists

In the spring of 2006, Dr. Walker founded Archaeo-Geophysical Associates, LLC, an archaeological consulting firm specializing in geophysical prospection. Since that time, he has collected geophysical data on over 150 archaeological sites, now totaling much more than 1,539 Acres of Gradiometer, 115 Acres of Ground-Penetrating Radar, and 484 Acres of Electromagnetic Induction Meter.

Aundrea Thompson studied at the University of Wyoming, and she has worked as a forensic archaeologist on numerous projects in the past ten years. For more on one project, in which she located the remains of a World War II soldier and brought his remains back to the US for burial, please click HERE

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Hauling their geophysical prospection equipment in a large pick-up truck around the country, Aundrea and Chet spent almost a week on campus conducting the cemetery surveys.

Not only did they push the ground-penetrating radar over the entire five acre field to determine the size of the burial ground, but they also used a drone to scan a 120 square mile area with LIDAR. Moreover, they pulled a magnetometer across the five-acre field to compile additional data.

Descendant Communities

Bishop Pendleton is a descendant of one of the individuals buried in the cemetery. He visited his ancestral burial ground during the magnetometer study.

Bishop Walter Pendleton

Rev. Pendleton shared some information about his ancestry with us at the cemetery. We plan to conduct interviews with him and several other descendants as the next stage of the project.
LIDAR DRONE 001

The cemetery

The burial ground is associated with and named after an African American church founded in the 1890s by Reverend George W. Wyatt, a one-time school teacher and politician who represented Waller and Fort Bend Counties in the state legislature in the 1880s. Based on slave schedules, Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery might contain hundreds of graves of enslaved people, formerly enslaved people, and their descendants. It sits on the former slave labor plantation of Jared E. Kirby, who, in 1860, owned more enslaved people (159) than any other planter in Austin County. No one made a formal record of these burials, however, and the historic burial ground, which is located behind University Village Phase III, was over time abandoned, especially after 1961, with the establishment of nearby Prairie View Memorial Gardens. Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery contains only a handful of marked graves, but it holds forever close the remains of three United States military veterans. 

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Magnetic Gradiometer

Chet pulls a large magnetic gradiometer behind him. It’s a passive instrument that measures changes in the Earth’s magnetic field.
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Chet and Aundrea have a large magnetic gradiometer, a passive instrument that measures changes in the Earth's magnetic field.

Magnetic Gradiometer

Chet and Aundrea have a large magnetic gradiometer, a passive instrument that measures changes in the Earth’s magnetic field.
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Chet and Aundrea completed the data collection with the magnetometer. Now that all the data is collected, they will analyze the data from the GPR, LIDAR, and magnetometer and submit their findings to Dr. Nesta Anderson, of Legacy Cultural Resources, Inc., who will meet with Dr. Moore and Pamela Morgan, of the Wyatt Chapel Descendants Committee, to compare the results to the findings from the pedestrian survey. 

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Digital PV Panther Project
John B. Coleman Library
Room 111
Prairie View, Texas 77446

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 936-261-3512

We cleaned the headstone of veteran Milo Wilson with D2 biological solution in October 2023, and it looks amazing in 2024.

The Headstone of Milo Wilson

We cleaned the headstone of veteran Milo Wilson with D2 biological solution in October 2023, and it looks amazing in 2024.

Stay tuned for the next installment!